„We at the ZEITmagazin have been fans of Juergen Teller for years, because he combines fashion and art, celebrities and unknowns, the professional and the private in a unique way - bluntly, without any false concerns, but with a good sense of humour. Andreas Wellnitz, ZEITmagazin’s picture editor, and myself visited Juergen Teller during the summer of 2009 in London. We suggested an outline for a column: one picture a week, plus text, both by Juergen. Juergen then developed the concept, which, as always with him, is defined by his attitude towards life: always on the move, meeting the most varying people, then staying at home with his family again. So the title of the series came up: Unterwegs mit Juergen Teller. One week the photographer reports on the making of the images, another week he explains his shooting concept, and then he writes about his relationship with his subjects in front of his camera. Repeatedly he puts himself into the picture. With this unique combination of photograph and text the viewer becomes a reader and the reader becomes a viewer, diving into the world of one of today’s most formative photographers. Juergen Teller’s work is being extended by one dimension, with these mini-essays written in an unmistakably Franconian-British style.” (quot. Christoph Amend, October 2010)

This ZEITmagazin series is the heart of Juergen Teller’s first solo show at Christine König Galerie in Vienna. Along with it we present a selection of his photographic work (Vivienne Westwood, Charlotte Rampling, Richard Hamilton et al.).
„Bubenreuth, summer, 1971. I’m standing on a three-metre stack of wood. Juergen is right behind me. I jump and land, my legs trembling, in one of the small circles we have marked out with sharp, pointed stakes - uninjured and relieved. Juergen, two years younger than me, jumps next, not far enough, and sustains a deep, tearing flesh wound. We stare at each other for a moment, in sheer horror, before he rushes into the house. (...) Juergen has always gone further than other people. He never stops at the point where I, for one, have reached my limit. But Juergen goes on jumping as though he had nothing to lose, or everything. He never complains - not about his injuries, a difficult childhood, not about having to sleep in an old Mercedes in London when he was penniless. He’s always kept going, and it’s still the same. (...) In his column in ZEITmagazin, Juergen wrote that he loves losing control. That’s what drives him on, maybe it’s the feeling of so often being on the brink of losing his grip and his footing yet still being in command of the situation.“ (quot. Helmut Teller, in: Calves and Thighs, Juergen Teller; TF. Editores, Madrid, 2010)

“I fantasise being photographed as the European intellectual, at some café table on a boulevard, or in my library, against the backdrop of my bookshelves. I shall look serious, even slightly mysterious, lost in thought, as though I were unaware of the photographer and his assistants. But I would probably end up looking effete, obnoxious and self-important. How he managed to photograph David Hockney lounging about in his mother’s living room, smoking and covered in the ash from all his cigarettes, for all the world like some anonymous and grubby old man from the north of England, I have no idea. It is as if the artist had never heard of California much less dreamt of beautiful boys, lawn sprinklers and swimming pools. (…) When Juergen Teller photographed me I wondered if he had somehow managed to capture my soul in that little black box of his, rather than just my vanity and my narcissism, my ridiculousness. But what he really tries to photograph, I have decided, is the folly of being alive. This is true throughout his photography, as much in his fashion work as it is in his portraits and his other kinds of photographs.”
(quot. Adrian Searle, in: Calves and Thighs, Juergen Teller; TF. Editores, Madrid, 2010)